But anyway, the basic jist of what I was going to post (I have since forgotten exactly what I was thinking at the time) is that VB.NET is a very easy language to learn and it is used a little bit in the business world. However you will find that C# is king.

If you want to be sure that for the foreseeable future you will always be employable, learn C#.

If you want to develop software professionally, C# is a much better choice than VB.NET. You may also want to do a little research to see which technologies are prevalent in your area. Where I live is heavy Microsoft, but other markets are predominantly Java.

...and doesn't pay as much as C# or Java. If you want to develop software for fun or on the side, VB.NET is decent choice. But if you want to make a career out of it and maximize your earning potential you'd be better served with C# or Java.

I have taught myself Html/Javascript and I have decided to expand my programming knowledge for my New Years Resolution

I have been thinking about picking Visual Basic.net as my programming language to learn. Would this be a good choice??

It would be OK, but since you learned HTML/javascript, why not move in that same direction with like ASP or PHP? My concern with Visual Basic is that it's only limited to the Windows operating system, and it seems to favor certain web browsers, like Internet Explorer (if you want to do web programming with VB.Net).

I like HTML/Javascript mixed with PHP to write database apps because they aren't really aimed at any specific browser and will work on virtually any browser that is connected to the Internet.

PHP (I think) is somewhat like using HTML and JavaScript with the functionality of languages like C++ and Visual Basic in that you can read/write files, access databases, and deal with graphics and media. That and I feel strongly about web programming, since everything is moving to the Internet/Web.

But going to C++ / Visual Basic might not hurt because it can teach you more about general programming, which would benefit you in the future regardless (just the though process you go through, and the debug/testing stages, how languages process instructions, as well as getting used to various syntaxes for different languages).

...and doesn't pay as much as C# or Java. If you want to develop software for fun or on the side, VB.NET is decent choice. But if you want to make a career out of it and maximize your earning potential you'd be better served with C# or Java.

I will agree, but as I stated in one of my replies, I think that web programming (which Java is meant for) would be beneficial especially for the person who wants to do this professionally. Being fluent in a wide variety of languages (both for web app development and desktop app development) is a major plus in today's computing industry, since many companies use various programming languages and packages to create/maintain their products and services.

Actually, you can do that with any language .. those files are easy to access and modify.

C# or Visual C++ I think give you more control over the OS and it's settings (and thus let you change them) than Visual Basic.net. VB has the functionality to deal with the registry, but I think you can interact with the OS at a much lower level more easily with Visual C++.

not saying you can't do it with VB, but you'll probably need to use more API to get the same job done than with C# or Visual C++. VB is easier to code and understand (in terms of being able to read and interpret the code) as opposed to C++ (or even C# in some cases).

If you want to develop software professionally, C# is a much better choice than VB.NET. You may also want to do a little research to see which technologies are prevalent in your area. Where I live is heavy Microsoft, but other markets are predominantly Java.

Truth in this post. Learning C# lets you easily cross to Java. VB.NET isn't as useful. Most everything I see today is C#. VB is being phased out.

C# or Visual C++ I think give you more control over the OS and it's settings (and thus let you change them) than Visual Basic.net.

Not true. Anything in .NET can be done in C# or VB.NET. C# is just an all around better language (IMO of course) than VB. It is more syntactically similar to C/C++, Java, PHP, etc etc.

cbassett01 wrote:

VB has the functionality to deal with the registry, but I think you can interact with the OS at a much lower level more easily with Visual C++.

True, but you can still use Win32 API calls in .NET. Google for the site pInvoke.

cbassett01 wrote:

not saying you can't do it with VB, but you'll probably need to use more API to get the same job done than with C# or Visual C++. VB is easier to code and understand (in terms of being able to read and interpret the code) as opposed to C++ (or even C# in some cases).

First part isn't true, as stated above. .NET is .NET. VB is "wordier" and it reads a little easier, but that is about it.

VB is too wordy for me. It's not easier to read, IMO. Sure, C# is terse...far more than VB. However, there's a certain beauty to C#'s terseness and IMO, it's easier to sift through logic when the code isn't hyper-verbose.

Oh and good responses. I think a lot of people are confused or have misconstrued ideas about .NET and C#.

VB is too wordy for me. It's not easier to read, IMO. Sure, C# is terse...far more than VB. However, there's a certain beauty to C#'s terseness and IMO, it's easier to sift through logic when the code isn't hyper-verbose.

Oh and good responses. I think a lot of people are confused or have misconstrued ideas about .NET and C#.

Yeah, they think C/C++ --> C#? Which I guess is natural. Anything you can do in a .NET language can be done in any other .NET language.

I do have to agree with VB being phased out (although I still do use it to create smaller apps, generally simple utilities that can be written faster in Vb than in C++. I am slowly getting away from VB alltogether and trying to move to Visual C++ or C# for my desktop apps (which isn't much... the bulk of my programming is web database applications, which I will generally do by hand, simply because I don't write the graphical interfances, only the code that works between the DB and what the user sees).

I do still like VB.NET for some things.

As for the comments earlier, I was maybe a little off about the differences between older VB and .NET, but I still think you can do much more in VB.Net than you can in the original versions of VB. For example, OOP. I did see a few examples of OOP with VB4/5/6, but it really wasn't fully supported as it is in VB.Net. And as for the registry, wouldn't people find it harder to write apps that deal with the OS in VB6 and later when we are moving into the 64-bit era? Those older VB versions aren't really designed to work with 64-bit OSes and 64-bit code, from how I feel about it.

That and since support for Windows XP will limited after mid 2011, XP will also go the way of Windows Me and 2000 (that and Windows Me was horrible from the start anyway).

public class Form1 { protected virtual void MySub() { MessageBox.Show("Hello! This is C#. An equally powerful language, but with no capitalization and slightly more confusing syntax, including curly braces and semicolons, mandatory.", "Hello, C#!"); }}

And people - VB.NET is just as useful as C#. They're also interoperable. VB.NET is a huge improvement over C#. But I suppose, knowing Javascript gives you C# knowledge. Sort of. The important thing to remember is... well, there isn't one. I say:

VB.NET is slightly more flexible than C#.C# is slightly more powerful than VB.NET.

But the feature that makes C# more powerful than VB.NET is the ability to write inline unmanaged code. Apart from that, VB.NET offers On Error (which you should never use, BTW) as well as Try ... Catch, AddressOf can implicitly initialize a delegate, and events are more straightforwards:

Code:

RaiseEvent MyEvent()

versus something like:

Code:

if(MyEvent != null) { MyEvent.Invoke();}

They're quite similar languages, though. It's just that I believe more people could help you in VB.NET than in C#. Take http://www.vbforums.com/ for example.

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